Amendment 66 means smaller class sizes and more individualized attention from the best teachers for kids throughout the state, writes Carol Hedges. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

By Carol HedgesGuest Commentary

Amendment 66 is about improving schools in Colorado, and all of us benefit when kids get a good education and go on to succeed in life. They earn and spend more money. Their increased productivity and buying power creates jobs and more opportunity for economic success.

Right now, Colorado adults are not doing our best for Colorado kids. Our investment in their education is the lowest of any of our surrounding states. We rank 41st nationally in expenditures per student, according to recently corrected data on per pupil spending from the National Education Association.

Despite this lack of investment, our teachers are doing their best to make sure no kids are being left behind. The achievement gap for Latinos, low income, and English language learning students has been shrinking. Student performance in math and reading has been improving. In fact, Colorado students taking the SAT have a higher mean score than kids in 38 other states.

Under the circumstances, it isn’t easy. Some kids need a little more help than others to reach their full potential. And if they live in a poor school district, there is often not a lot of local money to provide that extra attention. Amendment 66 recognizes that all Colorado kids deserve the same chance to succeed and it creates a way to fund schools that recognizes the reality that a system of haves and have-nots will cripple Colorado in the long run.

Amendment 66 provides more revenue to every school district in the state, along with supplemental resources to districts where kids, through no fault of their own, need more help. And it asks middle-class Coloradans to spend an extra 36 cents a day to do this.

Some think that is unfair. Their idea of fairly funding education is that you get back exactly what you put in, kind of like a vending machine.

The vending machine approach ignores the reality that we’re all in this together. It is in the best interest of the whole state, economic and otherwise, not to ignore problems just because they don’t directly affect us. We need to look no further than flood relief efforts to understand why that makes sense. All of Colorado suffered and all of us were ready to pitch in to help our neighbors.

The same thing applies when it comes to creating an economy that works for everyone. Colorado’s economic future is tied to our ability to nurture a well-educated and productive population, not just in certain areas but across the state. Strong, high-quality public education is the tie that binds us all economically.

Amendment 66 encompasses some of the nation’s best thinking on reforming public education funding. It means smaller class sizes and more individualized attention from the best teachers for kids throughout the state. And that seems really fair to me.